Osmium-160 is a radioisotope of the chemical element osmium, which has 84 neutrons in its atomic nucleus in addition to the element-specific 76 protons; the sum of the number of these atomic nucleus building blocks results in a mass number of 160. The very short-lived, only artificially produced, unstable and thus radioactive nuclide has no practical significance; the study of ¹⁶⁰Os is exclusively for academic purposes.

The proton-rich nuclide ¹⁶⁰Os was first reported in 2023; its artificial production was achieved in an accelerator laboratory by a fusion-evaporation reaction when a cadmium-106 target was bombarded with a beam of nickel-58 nuclei with an energy of 310 MeV [1].

In addition to the ground state, an isomeric state (^160mOs) was also observed. Osmium-160 and its nuclear isomer each decay with the emission of an α-particle and with a half-life of 97+97-32 μs and 41+15-9 μs, respectively to Tungsten-156.

See also: list of Osmium isotopes.

General data

Radioactive Decay

Half-life T_½ = 97 μs respectively 9.7 × 10^-5 seconds s.

Nuclear Isomers

Nuclear isomers or excited states with the activation energy in keV related to the ground state.

Isotones and Isobars

Literature and References

[1] - A. D. Briscoe, R. D. Page, J. Uusitalo et al.:
Decay spectroscopy at the two-proton drip line: Radioactivity of the new nuclides ¹⁶⁰Os and ¹⁵⁶W.
In: Physics Letters B, 847, 138310, (2023), DOI 10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138310.

Last update: 2024-08-27

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